


his heart as excalibur

by washette



Category: Moominvalley (Cartoon 2019), Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Happy Ending, I butcher the laws of nature for the sake of flower symbolism, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 03:36:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18957082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/washette/pseuds/washette
Summary: “Oh, this and that, this and that, that and this and Moomintroll, over and over again. Snufkin had been sick before, but never quite like this.”Or: Snufkin discovers that you don't die from having crushes, actually, but it takes him a while.





	his heart as excalibur

**Author's Note:**

> snufkin: has a gay thought
> 
> snufkin: webmd says it's done for me yesterday
> 
> tip! keep the wikipedia page on flower symbolism OPEN. we use motifs and foreshadowing and symbolism around these parts

As spring's first lights began to thaw out the rivers, so did they thaw the recesses of Snufkin's mind.

He was greeted with the perfume of blooming gardenia each morning, at high noon the pansies, and at night the lily of the valley while he took his evening tea.

And my, he began to think, my — the _pollen_ must carry his fever; for his cheeks warmed when he neared them, or thought too much of them, and it was beside them that he first found himself wishing for his clothes to suddenly smell of the daisies which lived under Moominmamma's drying line. How very strange, how very odd, to wish for such things.

Odd thoughts had been following him lately. They came along when he lowered his body into the dewy morning grass, and when he stopped to watch the clouds swell and take familiar shapes — thoughts like: how sweetly the birds could sing and who they sang like; how lovely the sky was that evening, how it was like strawberry wine spilled on a canvas, and who he had last shared that sweet drink with.

This and that, and Moomintroll. A script of things that would not end.

Snufkin worried little about these thoughts at first. Day in and day out as they came, what could he do with them? These were spring thoughts. Spring would be spring. It only made sense for his mind to walk these paths when he was so close to…well.

But then they continued, and multiplied, and grew somehow richer and more concentrated, like unchecked wildflowers.

Thoughts like: how refreshing the sheets of warm spring rain, yes, but how nice it would be to curl up and dry before a fireplace that crackled all night with no wind to blow it out. How much nicer even to slip beneath warm blankets in a bed in a room on the highest floor of the bluest tower. How wonderful, to wrap a cloud in all his limbs there.

Oh, this and that, this and that, that and this and Moomintroll, over and over again. Snufkin had been sick before, but never quite like this. Never lost so wholly in thought that fish got bored of nibbling his bait, or that it took a pinecone falling on his head to bring him back up. He knew now what a predicament he was in; the naivety of two weeks past long sailed on. Old Snufkin was ill. Yes, quite ill, he decided, as the new bump on his head throbbed.

He slumped and almost melted backwards against the mossy dirt, pulling the rim of his hat down over his face. Bother...at least this hat he could trust, even in these bewildering, perhaps dying, days. If he never recovered in that case, then at least not a one would see his cheeks stained pink. Not a soul would know that poor Snufkin had been laid out and picked apart by the silliest ailment of them all.

 _Admiration_. Longing. Wantingyearningmissing, the beast of many names: _heartsickness_.

This and this and this. He could not rid that remarkable moomin from the river of his mind. That and that and that. What else was a man to do then, but lay by the river and turn to dust there?

Odd thoughts indeed.

Snufkin rolled onto his side so that the ground kissed his cheek. Cold and unforgiving with a cloying sweet scent. Peat could be known. Bacteria, certainly, could be known. His own mind, a given. His heart? He had known it before. Now it was sinking in his chest, fluttering, like a traitor, or a stranger.

A cool sweat broke on his brow and he bit his nail into the pad of his thumb at the thought of that. A stranger, oh. _Could_ he even truly be considered himself anymore if he had fallen in…

Unthinkable. He would not have it. Snufkin snapped back up, spine rigid, and somewhat frantically brushed dirt off of himself as he clambered onto his feet. His fishing rod was toppled halfway into the water. Not at all, not at all. What had brought this all on anyhow?

Surely spring flowers couldn’t _really_ cause heartsickness.

Was it the long winter getting to his head instead?

Restlessness with his own company?

Or was it that he had been lingering in his little tent in the forest for two weeks now, so close that he could see Moominhouse from the top of a nearby hill? So close that, luck willing and his health forbid, Moomintroll himself might take a particularly long walk and pass _right_ by him? So very near that he thought he could smell the chimney smoke and hear Little My shrieking like the devil through the fields should he strain his ear enough? That he might catch a fish on his line and set it free, and that same fish might later be on his friends hook instead?

These things were of course unknowable, but he mulled it over as he began to trudge back towards his tent nonetheless. Surely, he thought, the only thing to do about this was to delay his return by another week, again. Heartsickness was the kind that couldn’t be cured with tenderness; tenderness made the heartsick worse! A return to Moominhouse now could only spell disaster, in well-meaning alphabet soup. Sweating it out was the way to go.

He briskly stepped inside and zipped up his tent even though he was alone, then discarded his scarf and hat, kicked off his shoes and pulled off his coat all in one long jittering motion. He found that his skin was flushed from top to toe once a good stretch of it was bare, the dampened white fabric of his shirt clinging to him in patches. By his pipe, he had the crush sweats! He almost pulled off every last button in the embarrassed haste to toss that off next.

Breathe. All he needed was to breathe and to feel like he was breathing. Was that so hard, or too much to ask? It appeared he could not manage both at once these days. Only one or the other.

Snufkin wiped his brow on the back of his arm and sighed. He sat down in the nest of his clothes and sighed again, with more feeling for sure.

One week more. One more week. _Then_ , surely then, he could return to Moominvalley in peace with working lungs and a clear mind.

In one short little week, Moomintroll would come running up to the bridge and it would be right and polite, for those few minutes, to be inspired to have all these thoughts in his heart.

Tonight, he needed to sleep.

And so he did, and he forgot all about dinner, and his fishing rod by the lake, until morning.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an ongoing story! I have a pretty loosely tied up plot plan in place, so it's coming. Yes, it does end with a proposal! No, you can't know anything else ;)
> 
> Next chapter will be Moomin's POV.
> 
> (If you know where I snatched "this and this and this" from...;;) hey.)


End file.
